Many forum owners will want to pick a style which is readily available and would like to customise them themselves a little to their needs.

When choosing a readily available selection always consider the following:

1. Does the style suit the niche of my forums.
2. Does the style validate and is it coded to standards.
3. Is the style easy to navigate.
4. Are the colours applicable to my niche and will my members like those colours.
5. How long the style takes to load. Is the style image heavy or does it make good use of CSS.
6. Is the style table cladded and will it load fast.
7. Does it render more or less the same in all browsers.
8. Will the style be simple for yourself to work with and edit to how you like.
9. Can I get the equivalent for free elsewhere and edit it to the same myself.
10. Is the author of the style a good style maker and will it be updated as other versions come out.

Many forum owners make the mistake of adding a new style to their forums which nobody likes and end up changing it again and again and again which becomes very annoying for their users.

When choosing a style choose something your audience will like, not only yourself and make sure the colours apply to your niche for example, dont buy a black skin when youre own a forum that is about painting. There is a world of colours out there, use them.

Never release a style until it is ready and you and others have fully tested it and are happy with the end product. If you are not happy, more than likely your members and potential members wont be either.

Always choose a skin you feel comfortable in editing if you plan on editing it. Skins which have “extras” for example Jquery sliders may take extra knowledge and editing.

Tools and Resources

Pingdom Tools Test how long it takes to load the different styles.

[ws] Webdesigners Tools | Webdesignerské nástroje Helps you choose complimenting colours for your forum.

Google See what others in your niche are doing

vBulletin Styles - vBulletin.org Forum Free vBulletin skins made by the members of vBulletin.org.

vBulletin Skins Premium skins

Themes by Design Free and Custom Styles

Free PhpBB Templates, Themes and Styles - themesBase.com phpBB Skins

Free SMF Themes, SMF Templates, SMF Layouts, SMF Skins Free SMF Skins

MyBB - Free PHP and MySQL Forum Software MYBB Resources

Thanks for reading

Article by: Michael

Compression reduces response times by reducing the size of the HTTP response. Gzip is the most popular and effective compression method currently available and generally reduces the response size by about 70%. Approximately 90% of today’s Internet traffic travels through browsers that claim to support gzip.

It looks like a hassle, but most of the time it has proven to be helpful. Although the packing-in will increase the load time, you won’t notice this with big sites. The time to compress is shorter than the time which is needed to load all files. Maybe you’re familiar with the setting in programs as vBulletin. An on/off switch and the level of compression. This setting only covers the main document of the requested vBulletin page. With the use of .htaccess you will have more control over the GZIP compression. (Note: The vBulletin GZIP Compression setting must be turned off if you are manually going to apply GZIP Compression. AdminCP -> vBulletin Options -> vBulletin Options -> Cookie and HTTP Header Options)

The following code works similar to the function in programs as vBulletin. Only with this method it will cover every php-page on your server instead of only vBulletin-files for example.

<ifmodule mod_php5.c>
php_flag zlib.output_compression On
php_value zlib.output_compression_level 1
</ifmodule>

Until now, you won’t feel an improvement if your whole site is a vBulletin forum for example. So now we will look into gzipping more stuff.

<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript text/css
</ifmodule>

This ifmodule will prove more worthy, as your site will keep functioning while you could experience trouble with the mod_deflate function in apache. The rest of the code functions as a filter which will use of the capitalised word DEFLATE. After that, you can enter the mime-types you want to compress.

HTML: text/html
CSS: text/css
JS: application/x-javascript

Alternatively, you can also target file extensions instead of mime-types. The code for that looks a bit different:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
<FilesMatch ".(js|css)$">
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

For adding more filetypes, just add a “|” after the word ‘css’. I recommend only doing this for .html, .js and .css. Images can often not be compressed any more, so in that case you will be wasting server resources.

The effects can be measured with all sorts of tools. If you are using Firefox, try using the Web developer add-on. It has many good features for webmasters, including file size checks. Check the effects on my vBulletin forum index:

Documents (2) - 15 KB (69 KB uncompressed)
Images (24) - 133 KB
Scripts (13) - 74 KB (215 KB uncompressed)
Style Sheets (3) - 4 KB (13 KB uncompressed)

Total (42) - 225 KB (430 KB uncompressed)

52% of total is compressed. Only those damned images... 

Depending on the way your site is build, you can get even more than my 52% compression! Caching your files is a good next step…

Article By: Demo

1. Lack of Security
2. Faulty Software
3. Compromised Server.

Security
Security for a site starts in the chair in front of the monitor. If you are not proactive about security than you will have problems. Security should always be handled by first removing all permissions unless absolutely necessary and then only giving permissions as needed.

This starts with your local computer. If friends use your computer than create a guest account and only allow what they would need to use. Don’t let them use your account. Make sure you have the latest security applications and protocols in place on your computer regardless of the OS. When making a connection to your web server, you need to make sure it is as secure as possible and you use an account with only the permissions required. Logging into SSH via a root account is foolish. You need to use a wheel group to get super user access. Same for email, FTP, or any other protocol.

Once you are connected to your server, you need to make sure your forum follows the same policies. If you’re moderators don’t need delete permission than don’t give it to them. The barest minimum of permissions to get the job done.

Passwords should be unique and gibberish. They should be 14-20 characters long. If you cannot remember your passwords than use a tool like Keepass to store them on a removable flash drive that you can take with you. Here is a suitable password:
lksad@!rj39#W04uri5

Make sure that critical areas are secure. Do not rely on the software layer to protect your investment. Make sure permissions are at the barest minimum to work and that people do not have access to folders they don’t need access to. Move your configuration files above the web root so they are not acceptable. Turn off directory indexing, error reports and other notices. Don’t display version numbers if at all possible.

When installing addons or hacks, have them reviewed for potential vulnerabilities. Most hacks are called that because they are copied and pasted bits of information put together by people with no real programming experience. They just want something that works.

Software Flaws
Make sure your software is always up to date. This not only includes your forum software but the webserver, PHP, MySQL, your Operating System, any utilities you use, etc… If you’re running Windows than make sure your security software is up to date. Updating daily is a good idea. A flaw in anything can cause issues. The Gumblar virus is an example of what can happen with faulty software. When is the last time you updated Adobe Reader?

Make sure your software works together. Mismatched versions of software can introduce vulnerabilities.

Server Compromises
Least case scenario. If you’re on a share server your at the mercy of every single site owner on that server for maximum security. This means that you should operate as if there is no security whatsoever. Sad but true. I bet in a apartment building with with 30 units, 2 people never lock their doors and 6 more use passwords that are 8 digits long and a variant of their name, the word password, their birthday or their dog’s name. You cannot rely on others to be secure. There are 300-400 websites on that server. There are probably 80 exposing you to security risks.

Ask your hosting provider what their security measures are and how they are implemented. Make sure they follow them.

To ward off the hackers, you need to be secure and confident in your security measures. You need to learn as much as you can about your systems and how they are protected. Otherwise you will be at risk. This doesn’t mean you’ll be attacked but you’ll be at risk.

By Wayne Luke of vBCodex.com

1. Realize your mistakes and the causes of failure.
   
   Your community didn’t just die out for no reason. Something must have gone wrong, or a crucial aspect of forum management simply wasn’t being done. You must realize how you got yourself into this dormancy in the first place. What did you do wrong? Why did people stop visiting the forum?
   Invite your community members to share their what they dislike about the community and be sure to address the concerns that are expressed.

2. Publish Content and Posts

   Now that you have discovered and corrected the flaws of your community, it’s time to get content going. Content and discussions are the foundation of forums - it’s what forums and discussion boards are meant for.
   You need to post several new threads/topics per day and several more posts per day. Create discussions that will spark member interactions - polls, debates, questionnaires - you name it.
   Without fresh and new content, your users have nothing to look forward to and therefore no reason to stick around.

3. Promote your Community

   Once you have some active discussions going on throughout your forum, it’s time to promote the community. There are several different ways to promote your community, but the most effective in the beginning will be word-of-mouth.
   Signature links on other discussion forums do fairly well, too. If members enjoy your content on other websites, they will be inclined to check out whatever links you may have in your signature.

4. Upgrade your Forum and add new Features

   Be sure your forum software is running the latest stable release so you can have the greatest feature-set to-date. Consider any hacks or plug-ins as well as any premium add-ons that you think will make great additions to the community. This is another time when consulting your community for feedback, suggestions and recommendations is a very good idea. Ask what they want to see and be able to do on the forum - and be sure to fulfill all reasonable requests.

These tips should get you well on your way to reviving your community and maximizing your potential activity levels. Feel free to share your experiences with reviving communities in the discussion thread.

Author: Nick

Tools to be used:
·Rectangle Tool[Vector]
·Text Tool
·Gradient Tool
Step 1:
Make a document of any size, I personally for this tutorial I made it 159 x 31.

Step 2:
Select the rectangle vector tool and drag the tool diagonally as seen below.

Step 3:
Double click on the shape layer and a window like this will come up:

We want to make a clean looking image, no? Let’s make an admin rank, for this one I will use red, but you can use any color you like.
I used a gradient overlay from #b00000 to #d70202, blend mode normal, opacity 100%, linear, 90 degrees angle and a scale of 100%. Refer to screenshot.

I also added a stroke #820000, size 1, position inside, blend mode normal, opacity at 87%, fill type solid. Refer to screenshot.

This is what we have till now:

Step 4:
We want to add shiny, no? For those who don’t want to, you can skip this step.
Anyways, for PC user Ctrl+Click on the layer, for Mac Command+click on the layer. Refer to screenshot below.

What it will do is select the shape.

Step 5:
Create a new layer then select the gradient tool. Make sure you have white as a foreground color.

Set it from foreground to transparent.

Using the angle tool [as seen below] mode normal, opacity 100%, and maintain checked dither and transparency, with that create a straight line across the image.

You can unselect the marquee around the image now and reduce the opacity of the white layer gradient to 12%.
This is how it should look like:

Step 6:
To add the text! You can use any text you want, there are so many variations! But I used the font face Eurostile, bold, size 14, sharp and added the text “Administrator”.

To add more effects to the text, I decided to add a drop down shadow at multiply, opacity 27%, angle 120, distance 1px, spread 0% and size 0px. Refer to screenshot below.

This is how it will look.

To end, if you guys want to leave it like that, you can, personally I will add an image [famfam icons you can download at famfamfam.com: Silk Icons] And this is the final result:

To save as a GIF delete the background layer for transparency then go to File>Save for website & devices.

Then click save.

If you want to save as a PNG just delete the Background layer then go to File>Save As> and from the drop-down menu choose .PNG

You can try with many colors and text